“I don’t like it here, I can tell you that. I can’t wait to get out of this place.”
Yancy nodded. Hollywood go home. He could go back to being a cop. But this accident that smelled like homicide sure beat all to hell whatever story they were trying to film.
“If you want to know the truth,” Sheri said, “I’m not terribly terribly surprised this happened. Laura’s been hyper-uptight from the beginning, you know?” She stopped for a second, then added, “Like just waiting to mess up super bad,” in case he wasn’t following along with his dim countrified brain.
“If you want to know the truth,” she said again, “Fifer knows it too. You can be sure he isn’t telling it like it is in there. You can be sure of that. He needs a great success artistically and financially and I’m afraid—” She shook her head sadly.
“I understood this movie was going well.”
“Oh, that’s what they say, but Laura—well, she was quite good in her day. With a certain type of part, one that didn’t require—how shall I put it—a quality of vulnerability—she was okay. She has no subtleties. Just a certain hard—ah—brittle, you might say, archness. It’s all just so—so—TV miniseries.”
“Isn’t Ms. Edwards supposed to be a great actress?”
“Pa-leese.” Sheri laid a hand on her chest, fingers fanned out over a breast. “I have nothing but the greatest respect for her as a performer, but I’d have to admit, since you force me, that her—talents are limited. And this film—she was killing it.”
Why was she wasting all this stuff on him? In her view, he could only be a gofer, sent to fetch and carry. Rehearsal maybe? “Fifer isn’t pleased with Ms. Edwards’s performance?”
Sheri lifted her hair off her neck, making her nipples poke against the halter top. “You have to know the kind of man he is. In control, very circumspect, on the outside, but inside—inside he’s really—screaming. And I know—only because I know him so well—I know he realizes he made a mistake with Laura. As a matter of fact…” She leaned closer, stroked a long curl of hair, and twirled it around her finger.
He knew he was supposed to be spellbound here, lost in all her sexy shimmering. He smelled her musky perfume, got a glimpse of those incredible boobs.
“I just happened to overhear—and I wouldn’t want you to think I was eavesdropping—I mean, I wouldn’t stoop—but he was on the phone and there was this despair in his voice and he was saying”—she lowered her voice—“‘I know something has to be done.’ And then there was this pause, like the other person was speaking, you know? And then Fifer got this really cold—I mean actually frightening, it was so cold—look on his face and he said, ‘I’ll take care of her. She won’t be a problem.’” Sheri widened her eyes at the enormous implications.
“You believe he was talking about—?”
“Laura.” A little impatience here. She caught it right away. “Laura forced him to take her on. I personally know he didn’t want her. She has some kind of”—Sheri searched her mind for a word of enough devastation—“something she’s holding over his head.” Sheri nodded sagely. “That’s the only reason she’s in. And she’s destroying this movie.”
“Who was Fifer talking with?”
“Well, one of the investors, of course.” She was a wee bit exasperated he was wasting time on the nonessentials. She moved constantly while she talked; her hands fluttered and her hair swayed and her butt jiggled and her boobs bounced. No wonder she was sweating, all that action had to be exhausting.
She was putting on quite a performance. He had to give her flawless skin, mouth-drying shapeliness, hair asking for fingers to get tangled in, and certainly gorgeous teeth, but she wasn’t lighting any fires. He’d never, at work or at play, found contempt a turn-on. All right, she probably didn’t have much experience with homicide. Maybe this was her way of coping, handling fear, shock, anxiety, grief even—anything’s possible. Or maybe she was just a cold, emotionally stunted, selfish little bitch. Or maybe she had a hand in the fall and there was some purpose behind this titillating display.
“Oh, pay no attention—” She laid her fingers on his arm. “It’s just—oh, I just—everything is too much. There’s a curse on this movie. Something more, something very bad—” Tears glistened in her eyes.
Now Yancy was impressed. When the emotion got turned on, he’d have expected heaving bosom and muffled sobs.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
Suddenly she stopped all the jiggling and bouncing and stood stock-still. A breath caught going in. He turned to see what got her attention. Ambulance out on the road. Slow and silent. The very stuff of which movies were made. Endless blue sky. Not a cloud. The tortured scream of a jet plane and then a thin white jet stream. Ambulance rolled by leaving a cloud of dust in its wake.
She paled. He took her elbow. “Ms. Lloyd?”
She swayed. He eased her around so she couldn’t see the road. She shivered. The ambulance, swaying and bouncing, moved on.
“Listen,” she said. “I can’t wait around here all day. I can’t help any anyway. So—”
The trailer door popped open and the director shot out.
“Fifer?” She put out her hand to stop him.
“Later, baby.” He patted her arm. “I’m busy now.”
With a little pout, she watched him stride off. Lieutenant Parkhurst got her attention and invited her inside. She turned on the smile and the jiggle and bounce and tripped up the steps, managing to slide very close to Parkhurst as she went by. Hey now, must be some kind of performance she was planning for the lieutenant.
“Yancy,” Parkhurst said, “round up Clem Jones. Tell White he can turn the rest of them loose. Make sure he has names, local and permanent addresses, and phone numbers ditto.”
Yancy nodded and headed for the caterer’s tent where White was keeping two dozen or so people corralled. They sat in folding chairs at long tables, or stood around in clumps, yakking with each other. Soft drink cans, glasses, cups, and plates with various snacks were all over the place. Nobody was pounding a fist and demanding to be let go. These people were used to hanging around waiting. He did notice all eyes shift to him when he passed along the message to White. Clem Jones wasn’t with them. He asked if anyone had seen her.
“Here somewhere.”
“Around.”
“Every time you move, you trip over her.”
But nobody could tell him where she was now and the last time anyone remembered seeing her was in the barn after Kay Bender fell.
Had she slipped through in all the confusion? Gone back to the hotel? He was getting all tense about her. He hoped nothing had happened to the silly little twit.
Tapping at Nick Logan’s trailer got him Nick, but no Clem Jones.
“You mind if I talk with you for a bit?” Nick asked.
“I’m looking to find Ms. Jones. Any ideas?”
“I’ll help you.” Nick stubbed out a cigarette and shoved his feet into thongs.
“You work with that guy in there?” Nick gave a hitch to his jeans and fell into step beside Yancy.
“The lieutenant? Sure.”
“What’s his name, Parkhurst? How is he to work for?”
No way Yancy was going to reach into that funny little can of worms. Sometimes the lieutenant was a volcano about to go off, and sometimes he wasn’t. You didn’t know. You paid attention. “He gets the job done,” Yancy said, sidestepping the obligation to be specific.
With a mocking expression in his eyes, Nick acknowledged the diplomacy. “You been a cop long?”
“Six years.”
“Like it?”
“Sometimes.”
“Tell me about being a cop.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Why a cop?”
Yancy shrugged. That was simple; he’d needed a job. If he had a father somewhere he’d never met the guy. His mother didn’t live in the same world as everybody else. Sweet, yes, and beautiful, but loony as owl shit.
When he was a little kid he’d come home from school hoping there’d be something to eat in the house. Like as not, his mother would hug him fiercely, grab his hand, and race with him to the woods. She’d point out butterflies and wildflowers, touch a petal with a fingertip as gentle as a puff of spring breeze. She’d sing in a soft clear voice, eerie haunting songs about blood and murder and revenge and unrequited love. He’d have made a pact with the devil for one peanut butter sandwich, would even have shared it with his sister who used to fantasize about food until he yelled at her to shut up.
“It’s a job,” Yancy said. He’d wanted to be fireman. Saving children from burning buildings, rescuing kittens from treetops. A hero. God help him, he was his mother’s son. She’d marked him with all her fairy stories without him even knowing it. The fire department wasn’t hiring, but the police department was.
At the makeup trailer, a man told him Clem wasn’t there, he didn’t know where she was.
“What kind of man is he?” Nick asked.
“Who?” Yancy’s mind was still running along the track that read what to do about his mother. By this time it was worn into a deep rut. For a moment he thought Nick was asking an oblique question about Yancy himself. And it startled him. Not only because he didn’t know the answer, but also because it seemed to hold echoes of his sister’s accusatory voice.
“This Parkhurst guy.”
“What are you getting at?”
Nick smiled, shrugged. “Oh, hell, I don’t know. I got the impression a whole lot of hostility was coming my way. Made me wonder why. Does he not like outsiders? Is that it? Or is it me in particular he doesn’t like?” Nick hooked his thumbs over his belt and loosened his knees. “All right, stranger.” Good John Wayne imitation. “This town isn’t big enough for both of us.”
Yancy smiled. For a big movie star type, Nick was an okay guy, they’d even gotten friendly over a beer or two. “The lieutenant’s a good cop.”
“Yeah? Good enough he won’t be swayed by trying to solve this immediately? Just to get it cleaned up?”
“What are you getting at?” Nobody answered his tap at the wardrobe trailer. With Nick at his heels, he went inside. Clothing on racks filled it until there was barely room to walk the length of it. Stacked washer and dryer at one end, worktable for sewing, mending, et cetera by the door.
“Hell if I know,” Nick said as Yancy closed the door behind them. “I’m just concerned. Kay was an okay kid. I didn’t know her well, but she was a part of this game and if it was more than an accident—somebody has to look out for her. She can’t do it herself.”
“What does that mean?”
Nick hunched his shoulders and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Oh, hell, justice, I guess. If that doesn’t sound too high-principled.”
Yancy stopped and looked at the actor. “Are you asking me if the lieutenant has the smarts to recognize a clue if he trips over one? What are you going to do? Step in and clear the case? Real movie stuff. The cops are so stupid they don’t know what they’re doing. But, by God, you’re going to track down the killer. See justice is done for this woman, because she can’t do it for herself and she’s one of your own.”
“Something like that, yeah.”
“You’ve been seeing too many movies, Nick.”
The actor gave him a smile. “Yeah, I guess.” After a moment he sketched a wave and started to flap off in his thongs. Not the best footwear for the terrain, his feet and ankles would likely be covered with chiggers by the time he got back to his trailer. For half a second Yancy wondered what that was all about—with these people you never could tell what was real and what was made-up—then he went back to worrying about Clem Jones. She was always around, looking at him with withering scorn, mouthing at him. She chewed bubble gum, for God’s sake, and had pink hair.
“Oh, Yancy?”
He turned. “Yeah?”
“You might try the barn,” Nick said. “Clem’s a morbid little thing. She might be there.”
Yancy headed for the barn. The yellow tape was down, that meant Osey had finished taking prints and picking through straw for evidence. The chief really was moving this along as fast as possible. He looked inside. Body gone, no Clem, no people, but everything else still there, tangles of cable, cameras, booms, mikes. Just as he turned away he heard noises, muffled sounds from the loft, then a high thin keening that stirred the hair on the back of his neck.
He clambered up the ladder, halted when he got to eye level, and cautiously peered into the huge shadowy space. It took a moment to spot her; the ankle-length prison-striped smock sort of fit in with the dimness. Pink hair didn’t. She sat at the edge of the drop just where the railing had broken, knees drawn up, arms around them. She froze when she saw him.
“Ms. Jones?”
Like a wild thing, she scrabbled away, ended up against the rough wall, eyes wide with panic, mouth open for air.
“Hey now,” he said softly. “Take it easy.”
She was a mess; black eye makeup smeared all over her face, nose running, pink hair all every which way.
Recognition slowly seeped into her eyes. They were an odd tan color and a shaft of sunlight angling through the small window at the peak of the roof picked out gold flecks. Tears spilled.
“I killed her,” she whispered.
6
Slowly, Yancy levered himself up into the loft. Go easy here, Clem didn’t look too well wired together. A sudden move on his part and he’d have her exploding, then there’d be raw nerve ends dangling all over the place. He edged along to a spot where he was between her and the broken rail, then squatted, facing her.
“It’s all right,” he said. “Nobody’s going to hurt you.” He kept his voice loose and slow.
She brought an elbow up over her eyes, gulped, and sniffled on a ghost of a sob. “Yancy, you got a sweet voice, but you’re full of shit.”
Her flip, so quick from damp misery to attack, surprised him. Relieved him too. As long as she was mouthing off she wasn’t likely to throw herself over the edge. She looked like a homeless cat, scared and spitting at everybody.
He’d better treat her like a stray, she seemed better able to handle that. This brought up thoughts about her life he didn’t have time to go into at the moment. He stood up, took four strides, sat beside her with his back against the rough wall, and rested his forearms on his bent knees. “What are you doing up here?”
She pinned him with a gaze like rifle barrels. Leaning forward, he pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and held it out to her.
She looked at it like she’d never seen such a thing before, then she scrunched it and scrubbed it over her face, mixing tears and black mascara and blue eye shadow and white makeup into one big muddy mask. She blew her nose. “Go away, Yancy. I hate men.”
“You said you killed her.” He waited. “What did that mean?”
“Life is all one big gigantic joke. Nothing but banana peels and pratfalls. A fart in a cathedral. It was my fault.”
“What was?”
“Take your questions and your busy little mind and your dithyrambic little self and get away from me.”
Dithyrambic? He better get himself a dictionary. “Why was it your fault?”
“If I’d gotten Laura up here like I was supposed to, Kay wouldn’t have fallen.”
“Then it might be Ms. Edwards who’d be dead.”
Clem grimaced. “I’m slaying dragons.”
“I’ve slain a dragon or two in my life. Maybe I could help.”
“Are you deaf? Get lost.”
“Sorry. I didn’t just wander up for a straw to pick my teeth with. I was sent to get you.”
“Good boy. You did what you were told.”
“Yes, ma’am, I usually do.”
“Your mother must be very proud.”
“As is yours, I’m sure.”
“I don’t have a mother. Go away.”
“You don’t have a hope of making me go away. You will come
with me, docilely and mutely, or I will cuff you and drag you.”
Clem looked at him seriously for a long minute. “Can you really do that?”
“No. So I’d appreciate it if you’d just haul ass out of here and come with me.”
She let a beat go by, then another, then tossed off, “Okay.”
Yancy attempted to help her down the ladder and got a kick for his attentions.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked when they passed from the dimness of the barn out into bright sunlight.
“Laura Edwards’s trailer to answer some questions by the higher-ups.”
“That guy that looks like a grizzly about to attack? What’s his name?”
“The lieutenant, that who you’re talking about? Parkhurst.”
“He’s a cop,” she said, getting everything clear.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t want to talk to him.”
“They just want to find out what happened.”
“I saw him before.”
“Before what?” Yancy asked, sitting hard on exasperation.
“He was hanging around the barn during the lunch break, when nobody else was here.”
Yancy delivered her at the trailer and wondered if that crack about the lieutenant had any truth in it.
* * *
Susan pulled her blouse untucked as she opened the door of the pickup. The sky was taking on the hue of cobalt blue. The air was finally cooling down a little—it damn well should at almost seven-thirty—but the pickup, having baked all afternoon, was like an oven. She pushed on the air-conditioning, then pushed it off and cranked down the windows. With the truck in motion, a little air passed through and it smelled of coming dusk and recently cut grasses and lilacs. Cicadas hummed somewhere. Her mind replayed the session with Clem Jones. Susan couldn’t get a clear fix on Clem. One minute she was world-weary, the next smart-ass, the next lost and bewildered. Parkhurst was surprisingly easy on her. Susan wondered why.
Parkhurst and Laura Edwards. Talk about surprise. Wife, for God’s sake.
Lately, her interest in Parkhurst had just as much to do with hormones as business. She’d listed all the reasons why it wasn’t a good idea, why she’d be a damn fool. And then this famous actress comes along, wraps herself around him, and Susan is as green-eyed as any teenager. Jesus. What a mess.
Murder Take Two Page 5